


He Finally Won

by Copperheid



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Dissociation, M/M, One Shot, True Ending, Underage Drinking, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-21
Updated: 2020-12-21
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:20:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28204500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Copperheid/pseuds/Copperheid
Summary: Akechi tries to cope with the idea that he has just killed the only person that ever actually cared about him.
Relationships: Akechi Goro/Amamiya Ren, Akechi Goro/Kurusu Akira, Akechi Goro/Persona 5 Protagonist
Comments: 7
Kudos: 68





	He Finally Won

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I am still working of SWC, but sometimes you get one shot brainworms that need to be let out, okay?

“Good luck in there” says Sae-san. As she walks away, he laughs, short and manic, to himself. He can’t help it. He wouldn’t be the one needing luck. 

“Foolish woman,” he hisses to himself.

He takes the elevator downstairs in silence. He didn’t even notice the time pass as he is suddenly on his destination floor. The corridor is cold, grey, empty but for one guard at a door. There he is. He approaches the guard. 

“May I ask that you accompany me? Going in unarmed to interrogate a murderer makes me uncomfortable…” lying is so easy now.

He enters the room with the guard. Akechi disarms it from behind. Swiftly attaches a silencer. He had practiced this. Could do it without thinking. It was automatic for him. It had to be. Can’t mess up. Can’t show weakness. Not with him watching. 

The guard turns to face him, raises its hands in surrender. “Ah! What’re you…?” Akechi shoots it once in the chest. It was facing the door as it fell. It was dead. Sloppy. Anyone with half a brain could tell that Ren couldn’t have shot it from where he was sitting. For once the SIU being in that cunt’s pocket was a good thing. They’re usually a bunch of creeps that do nothing but cause problems and make him do shit he doesn’t want to. It’s scary, sometimes. He doesn’t like being scared.

He turns to his mark. It’s looking at him. Looks sad. Akechi remembers he’s here to win.

“I owe you for all of this. Thanks.”

Akechi steps towards it. Ren. It’s Ren. His...what is Ren? Not a friend. Not an enemy, either, really. Not now. It’s tied to a table. Can’t do anything. All for Akechi. It’s pretty, even still, with the bruises. With the resigned look in its swollen obsidian eyes.

“That’s right. You and your little friends were vital to our plan. And now, it will be completed. Your popularity truly was quite stunning. That just made using you all the more worthwhile.” Our plan. Who’s plan was it again? Not Akechi’s. Akechi didn’t want to be here. He has exams soon. He’d rather be studying. He’d rather be doing anything else.

Gun still smoking, it’s hot and smells different. Guard’s hands had fallen, showing its surrender to the man at the door. The man with a gun. It’s blood dribbles out of its mouth and pools behind its back in a lake of red. It’s eyes looked funny. Like big marbles, like spun glass. Its looking at him, but it also isn’t. It can’t look at anything.

He adjusts his left glove. His hands are sweaty. He’s nervous? Why is he nervous? He’s done this before, right? Lots of times. Nobody is safe from him. He’s good at this.

He laughs mirthlessly in a short breath. He wonders what it’s thinking.

“Have you finally pieced it all together?” He tries to smile. It feels weird on his face.

Ren stares back at him, his purpled, tear stained face and those eyes, reddened and unmoving. Unwavering. No fear, just proud and expecting. Huh.

Akechi turns the gun on him and cocks it. Smiles in a vicious way. Lots of teeth. He should be the scary one. He’s finally winning. 

It can’t do anything now. It only blinks. 

“Case closed, this is how your justice ends.” No, he shouldn’t, He doesn’t want to do this, but it means he’s finally beaten him, so he pulls the trigger. The suppressor still leaves it loud enough to hurt his ears. He hadn’t expected that. Guns in the metaverse are much quieter.

He watches Ren’s eyes widen as the bullet penetrates his skull. The blood pours down his face and he falls forward with a wet slap onto the table as the light leaves his pretty eyes.

Akechi feels his stomach lurch. It’s just a thing. It’s not your friend. It never was. It's dead now.

Akechi nudges it with the gun, just to be sure it’s really dead. It doesn’t move, doesn’t blink or breath or cry. Just stares. It’s gooey. He doesn’t like it. 

But he smiles when he realises he’s succeeded. He hadn’t thought he’d have the guts to do it. He removes the not-silent silencer and places the gun in Ren’s right hand. Ren is right handed, he should put it in his right hand. A careful move, attention to detail. Very clever. Shame the staging is wrong. It’s all wrong. It’s all wrong wrong wrong wrong.

No. Forget it. It doesn’t have to fool anyone.

He avoids looking at it. It’s the first time he’s seen one in person since his mom. In the metaverse, they just melt into smoke and disappear. But these two are still here. Ren’s brain is on the table. On the wall. His pretty face is bruised, swollen and deformed. Soaked in crimson. He doesn’t like the way the cold lifeless eyes are looking past him, unseeing. None of the intelligence and depth they once held. Just black pits. Thinks about closing its eyelids, maybe he’d look like he’s sleeping. But he doesn’t want to touch it. That would make it too real.

He turns away proudly and chuckles to himself. He finally won. He leaves the room without another word. Cold. Keeping it together, so proud, he won. He won he won he finally won.

He feels empty.

He slowly walks away from the scene, each leg feeling like lead as the adrenaline high starts to leave him. He feels the want to scream in the elevator all of a sudden, but it’s not soundproof, so someone might come and see the blood on his hands. But he’s wearing gloves? Oh well, they might see the little spatter on the underside of his chin he could feel but not quite see. It refused to go away no matter how many times he wiped at it with the handkerchief. If they saw that they’d know. He can’t. Has to keep it together. Has to stay calm.

When he gets out of the elevator where he saw Sae, he has enough reception to call Shido. He has to do it, but the thought of hearing that slimy man's voice just makes his breath quicken in a painful way. 

Shido picks up on the first ring. Says nothing. Akechi has to speak then. His affect is flatter than usual. “Shido-san. My job is complete.”

“I’ve told you not to call me by name,” the prick says. Whoops. Akechi isn’t thinking. He doesn’t remember Shido saying that. Or he does, he just doesn’t care. Whichever.

Shido’s voice sounds annoyed. “Regardless, all that’s left is to deal with the remnants”

Akechi balks at the idea. “The continued deaths of these teenagers would be a bit much, don’t you think?” He doesn’t want to do this shit. Please don’t make him do this again.

Just has to say what he rehearsed, keep him happy for now. Not long left until he’s ruined, now.

“I considered making it appear they had a falling out...but that would only amplify public frenzy...it would be best to have each of them meet with an unfortunate accident once the storm blows over” out of his jurisdiction. That’s the cleaners job. Not his problem.

Shido: “is there any possibility they’ll want to avenge their leader?”

Akechi gets satisfaction from Shido buying his shit, for seeking his input as a ‘professional’. Gets even more satisfaction from lying to him.

He tries to sound sincere in his derision. Drawing on half truths helps. “No chance. They’re nothing but cattle anyway...they have no backbone without his guidance” he knows they will WANT to try to avenge him, and may even try, they just aren’t strong enough to face Akechi without him. Would they even be smart enough to know it was him?

Oh fuck, his stomach drops. It was him.

Akechi's mouth is dry. “I will keep my eye on them just in case though.”

“I’ll be counting on you,” says the cunt. It’s probably a lie, but it’s sweet on the ears anyway.

“They will live their lives cowering in fear of death. An apt punishment for obstructing our work”. They will live. They’re nice kids, if a bit boring. Akechi doesn’t want to. To...

Shido: “Make sure to kill that strange cat once you find it as well.”

Akechi: “Understood, though I doubt there’s anything to worry about. It’s merely a cat, after all.” It’s just a cat. And a car. And a smartass. With a powerful healing persona and knowledge of the metaverse Akechi wishes he had sooner. Ren probably wished he had those healing powers now too.

Oh wait. No...he probably doesn’t, does he?

Leans against the wall, exhausted. Tries to slow his breathing. “More importantly, they should be dealing with the suicide right about now. Things will become quite busy once the word gets out...I’ll need to prepare my comments on the matter.” He doesn’t want to deal with that right now.

Shido sounds smug. “I must be prepared to deal with it on my end as well. Beyond that, what of the director of the Special Investigations Unit?”

Akechi reciprocates the smugness. Shido likes it when Akechi acts like he enjoys it. “Perhaps he’ll be struck by a mysterious illness sometime soon.” No blood, just smoke. Familiar. Easy. He can do that.

Akechi wastes no time in going out to kill the director. He doesn’t have to process what he’s done, that way.

Left right, left right, one two. Walking shouldn’t be hard, but he has to think about it very hard indeed. His legs feel shaky and his hands are clammy and his face doesn’t feel like his face. He has to think hard about looking like he always does, just every day prim and proper, elegantly calm Akechi. Not a nervous wreck, not a killer. A little boy who wouldn’t hurt a fly.

He had to get far enough away from the scene of the crime that if an unaffiliated party came across the scene before their plants, he wouldn’t have it pinned on him. But he couldn’t go far.

He’s lucky that the director had, of all places, manifested his palace in the very police station he was already in. But at the same time, he wasn’t. He wanted to get the hell out of there. Away from the vision of such an admirable brain, so well attuned to Akechi’s own, splattered across the wall.

Akechi brought himself to the men’s bathroom on the west side of the first floor, the opposite side of the building than there. He looked in the mirror.

His face was white and clammy and his pupils were pinpricks in his maroon eyes. His bangs had formed a sticky clump where the sweat on his brow had brought them together. His hands shook and he clamped onto the rim of the sink as he peered at the stranger looking back at him.

“You disgust me.” He told the guy staring at him.

Shoving himself away from the sink and turning his back on the mirror, Akechi angrily brought out his mobile phone and brought up the keywords for the director’s palace. It was fortunate he’d already scouted it out and knew where to go to find the old git’s shadow, so he would make quick work of it.

He does. Each shadow in his path is useless and weak. He kills kills kills. They are nothing to him. Not like he is. They are easy.

He felt nothing. Not even catharsis. Just white noise.

The director is much the same. Akechi used to tear himself up inside when he killed people’s shadows, but after what he had just done, this felt about as immoral as drinking water. It was just something he had to do to live. It’s was so inconsequential he didn’t question it. He kills the director without so much as looking at him.

Goro just wished his distortion hadn’t manifested as a fucking staircase. He is too bone tired to run for his life as it is, nevermind taking the stairs while doing so. He considers just letting the Palace swallow his pointless life for a little too long. 

When he emerges from the crumbling ruins of the stairway to the top, Akechi pukes in the bathroom sink.

—————

Go home, Akechi. 

Go where?

Home.

I don’t have a home anymore.

—————-

When Akechi leaves the police station, he does not head straight to his apartment. Instead he takes the subway into Shinjuku. Hoping for what, exactly? He couldn’t say. He mills around aimlessly for a spell, his mind a blank canvas as the bright lights and loud passersby etch a barely discernible image onto it and not much else.

He hadn’t made the conscious decision to go there, simply failing to change trains when he should have, dragged away from Kichijoji and into the nightlife district.

He knew what had drawn him there, though.

One thing he had learned from...from.

No, don’t think about him.

He had learned this year that it’s easy to make yourself unnoticeable, even without making a conscious decision to. Despite his celebrity, nobody approaches him as he walks down the busy street, his head held low, as low as it ought to be. Eyes trained on the ground, he looked all the inconsequential sack of shit he truly is.

When he buys a bottle of sake in the corner store, nobody looks at him long enough to question his age.

Akechi doesn’t remember taking the JR Chuo line from Shinjuku station into Kichijoji. He remembers some of the walk back, hiding the bottle of sake in his sleeve and taking meek sips from it on occasion just to feel something.

As he reaches the apartment, he fumbles his keys in his uncoordinated hands as he tries to unlock the door. See, not a killer’s hands. A killer can unlock a fucking door. Akechi’s no killer.

He curses under his breath at nothing as he stumbles into the apartment, kicking off his expensive Italian shoes hastily and leaving them in a heap by the door.

He pads in his socks into the bathroom. Doesn’t bother locking the door. He lives alone so who cares? Not him.

The face looking back at him is beet red and surly. Akechi doesn’t know this person.

“Fuck you.” He tells the mirror seriously, swaying a little where he stood. “You killed my friend, you bitch.”

He snorts out of his nose, like it’s funny. Suppose it is, in a way, to call someone like Ren his friend. Stupid, beautiful, wise, funny, horrible Ren with his stupid fake glasses and his stupid cat and his stupid hundred-odd personas, was never Akechi’s friend.

Akechi doesn’t need friends. He needs this. He needed to do it, for his own sake. He’d been getting too attached, yep yep yep. What point is there in fantasising about a life he’ll never have, a life he’d never deserve? Ren was just a setback.

Why is he crying about it then?

Akechi is sitting on the bathroom floor, hot tears rolling down his cheeks, grizzling miserably into his sleeve. He bites down painfully on his wrist to suppress the urge to scream. He doesn’t remember sitting down, or placing the bottle of sake beside himself.

He releases his wrist and hastily grabs from it, taking one more generous swig than he could afford. But fuck it, who cares anymore? He certainly doesn’t. He could die of alcohol poisoning and nobody would be around to give a shit anymore.

His sobs turn to painful hiccups and his eyes are raw from being rubbed at. He stumbles back to his feet and kicks the basin of the bath. He kicks hard, and is lucky that it doesn’t cave in with the force. Is lucky his foot doesn’t shatter, though it does hurt a lot. Instead, he just loses his balance, wobbling on his feet as he desperately tries to regain his composure. Ha, like he’d had any in the first place.

It’s just not fair. Why did it have to be Ren? Sweet, handsome Ren with the razor sharp senses and the competitive streak that set Akechi’s blood aflame? Ren, the only person who ever gave a damn about him, maybe ever? Ren, who smelled like coffee, incense and aniseed, heady and rich. Ren, the guy who was probably as close to being perfect as a person could be, who made Akechi sick to his stomach to even look at because he was so fucking obnoxiously great without even trying?

Why wasn’t it him?

He’s being so fucking dramatic. Of course it had to be Ren. Nobody else would have fit the scheme. It sucked that Akechi never got to have his duel, or his moment truly alone with the guy, but that’s just it, isn’t it? He doesn’t need Ren. Ren was too good for this world anyway. Definitely too good for a useless piece of shit like him.

Akechi wanted nothing more than to call him up, hear his voice, see what’s on his mind. 

Nothing’s on his mind. His mind is on the interrogation room table.

Those coal black eyes, a hollow abyss.

Grey skin.

A Shujin uniform

So much blood.

So much fucking blood.

At least Akechi makes it to the toilet bowl this time


End file.
